Maria V. Snyder – Inside Out

“Inside Out” is the first book out of two of the Inside series:

1. Inside Out
2. Outside In

Content:

Trella is a scrub. This means that she is part of the lowest social class in Inside and her function is to keep everything clean. Nobody knows, what exactly Inside is. It is a world, that is self-contained and -typical for dystopias – people are divided into social classes. Accidentally, Trella gets into difficulties, gets to know things, she shouldn’t know and has to fight for her life.

My opinion:

As you may already noticed, it is once again a dystopia for young adults. But in my opinion it differs from others. Nothwithstanding some typical clichés the world “Inside” is very special. I found it very exciting, that the reader knows as little about Inside as the protagonists – where it is, what it is and what you can find outside. Inside is self-contained and consists of lots of shafts and floors.

Mainly, the story is about Trella. Of course, there are other characters as well, that you get to know, but except for some, they are not that important for the story so that the reader need not be able to identify with them. However, Trella is a very interesting character with a lot of sympathy. It is important to remark, that there is no lovestory to the fore. Different as in other young adult books there is just one tiny lovestory, which you don’t really have to talk about, but nevertheless it is nice.

The book was very exciting. At the end I just thought, that some things were clear all the time and I should have been able to foresee that, but during reading I rarely had the right thoughts. There is enough space for speculations, so that the reader can think about the meaning of all the events.